5 Years of Cuban Nomad

It took a harmless looking email from Twitter to remind me of how long Cuban Nomad has been in existence. When I opened the mail there was a lovely looking cake (which you can see on the right) and a big blue exclamation, “Happy Twitterversary!”

“You just turned 5,” it continued. Five years. Wow.

I started this blog and Twitter at the same time, hoping one would compliment the other. When you first start out there are so many expectations and goals; I’ll write all the time, I’ll build a readership, writing here might open doors somewhere else. As time passes reality wears down your hopes, leaving you with the achievable and the actual.

Perhaps it’s the RPG nerd in me, but I tend to understand things better when I can see them in a numerical fashion. Relationships reveal themselves as do trends. This post is to help me analyze and commemorate the work I’ve put into Cuban Nomad and take stock of things while figuring out my next steps.

The Breakdown

As of today (before posting this article), 5 years of blogging looks like this:

Word Count

Total # of Posts: 155
Words Across All Posts: 96,569
Total # of Comments: 376
Words Across All Comments: 26,887

Total Posts by Year

Posts

Year

58

2009

49

2010

14

2011

13

2012

14

2013

7

2014

Posting Frequency

Categories

What This Means To Me

It’s easy to see that the start of my blogging journey was full of piss and vinegar, charging ahead with a heady mix of enthusiasm and adrenaline. I was living in California at the time and my commitments were not as intense as they are now. In a sense, it was the perfect time for me to start blogging, but I have yet to even come close to the productivity I had back then.

As the years progressed, and workloads increased, the posts reduced dramatically. There was A LOT of travel in those years. Honestly, too much travel. The longest stretch without a single post is 4 months which isn’t horrible, but is still a third of a year.

I’ve written enough words for 2 small novels or one decent sized book. I’m most often chatting about writing or veering into personal territory. Even though Haven Publishing has been in existence since 2011 I have only written a single post about it. I guess the superstitious Cuban in me prefers not to talk about things until they are fully realized. This would make me a shitty hype man.

The blog still suffers from a decided lack of focus which is a perfect reflection of the inside of my head. A million different paths of light and me fluttering between them like a hummingbird. If I’m honest with myself, I’d recognize that I’m at a decision point for my blog, my writing, and all my creative endeavors. Steven Pressfield calls this decision “turning pro” and you may also know it as “shit or get off the pot.”

My creative path is littered with false starts and abandoned projects. I would think most people’s are the same. But there comes a time when you need to understand whether or not that’s enough for you. Would I be happy only dipping my toes into creative waters or am I going to cannonball into this ocean of possibilities and fill my lungs with salty, burning joy? I’m great at motivating others to take the plunge, but I think it’s high time I kick my own ass into the deep end.

Have you analyzed your own blog in this much detail? What did you discover? Let me know in the comments or shoot me a tweet @gabrielnovo. If you enjoy these articles then have them delivered to your inbox or share them using the buttons below.